Dreaming
by Ecatar
Summary: Rey's finds Ben in the moments before leaving Exegol. Slice-of-life Reylo.
1. Chapter 1

Rey felt the crackle in the ground underneath the cool stones that poked her back. That crackle made her teeth chatter and her bones groan, and she wondered if it was already too late to leave. A part of her didn't want to leave, and though she knew her hands would move and her legs would rise, there was comfort in thinking the end had been a choice she didn't have to make.

But as clearly as she felt the stones in her back and the dried blood that crusted over the lid of the shirt she held, she felt the safety and gravity of the time ahead of her. She felt the security of her feet as they trampled against bending rock and the gust of air on her face when the dying remains of Palpatine's forgone temple met the reality of an erupting Exegol.

Things she knew she needed to feel, that one day she'd be happy she felt, were coming, and there was some sort of relief in that. But for now, for the seconds she knew she had, she closed her eyes, and breathed in his smell. It was new, some combination of the way his hand felt on Ahch-To and the short, raspy breath she felt brush against her face when they sat together, before she ran away. But there was something else, something she'd always known had been there, but had never quite gotten to feel.

Slumped over in the rotted temple of Exegol, a bloodied shirt in hand and with the future calling, she finally met Ben. It was just a smell, and it'd be gone as soon as she opened her eyes, but she didn't care. That smell held the weight of so many conversations she wished she could have, but more importantly, it felt like all the words she knew she didn't need to say. It was something she could understand. Mementos she could decipher.

That moment was a pair of arms around her, and as the cold of the hurricane that trickled into the temple and the heat of the force lightning that crumbled the statues around her met in equilibrium, there was solitary comfort. She was alone, but she could imagine, and that was a love she knew she couldn't let go of.

The hero of a war that decided the fate of galaxies slumped back against the floor, a vacant shirt crumbled in her fingers and warmed by her chest. She forgot the embarrassment of loving another person, and she didn't care really about where she'd come from. A guilt that would overwhelm her in the years to come began to percolate in her stomach, and tears made dried blood new again. But it was here, in her weakest, most vulnerable moment, that Rey felt a perfect balance, a winding tunnel of emotions intermixed with the pain and happiness she knew would envelop the rest of her life. She clung tighter to the shirt and to the memories of the person she'd felt in that shirt moments earlier, and let her feelings wander through that tunnel.

There was darkness for a while, but the dark didn't mean anything to her anymore. What had once been the boogeyman, a future she thought she couldn't avoid or a truth she couldn't run from, had been made tame. She understood that what had scared her before was now just a part of understanding the life that surrounded her. The darkness she had feared became a part of a journey she knew she had to take.

Ben had taken that journey, and she saw it swallow him whole. Emerging from that darkness didn't mean he had taken the wrong path; she wasn't so sure there was more than one path to take anymore.

When the darkness cleared and gave way to the white powder of snow against the earthy bark of the trees ahead, she wasn't relieved. It was just another step she had to take.

The ground that squished underneath her feet was familiar, and though she knew she'd never find a word to call it, the feelings that surrounded her were a place she'd someday call home. The familiarity was ahead of her, without heat and without kindness, and it didn't beckon her forward. It was full of quiet and something she knew she wouldn't understand for a long, long time.

Making her way forward, Rey took stock of herself; the blood on her hands had fallen away, and the cuts and chips on her fingernails were beginning to stitch themselves back together. Her arms and chest were covered in the shirt she had clung to on her way here, but she could feel a heat bathing over the cuts she knew would become scars. Life hung in the air in this place, and it oiled the creakiness in her bones; for the first time since she'd left Jakku, her body was at peace.

There was no breeze through the trees she walked under, but she could hear birds sounding in the distance. Their sound raised the sky on some of the planets she'd been to since she left home, but here they seemed more like a reminder to bathe in the light from the stars that hung above her ahead. She tried to make sense of whether this place had a day or night, but all she felt was the light of the stars that never seemed to end. There wasn't a darkness strong enough to stop their light, and the planet was bathed in a twilight that felt perfectly equal.

Stopping at a rock, just as the trees began to end and hills began to emerge, Rey took in the rest of her surroundings. Beyond the forest, she saw a center, and rivers that ran across the planet carried water into that center. Water fell in, and the axis of the world seemed to turn around it, but she didn't find herself drawn to it. Jumping in was just as likely to send her up as it was to pull her down. There was no fear.

She heard the rushing water from all sides, life that filtered through the center and back out again. She followed the sound up the hill, leaving her rocky perch behind. She imagined the places he might have walked, and tried to match her steps with his. She kept pace with a ghost that lived in her memory, feeling the wet spots on her cheeks. Winter planets, walks in a summer forest, the way spring makes things even more of what they are, those parts of life she wanted to experience, she wished he could feel them too.

A part of her wanted to believe he'd been there too. Maybe he'd imagined the same place. Maybe he'd felt the same balance. It was hard to imagine the man she knew he became; all she had was the smell on his shirt and the taste of his lips.

Still, she closed her eyes, and danced in the way a child might, placing her feet in the imprints his ghost had left behind.

She trekked up the hill and found steps that gradually rose above the snow that had trickled toward the center. The steps were stone, and her feet found tree roots that cracked through as she made her way upward. Eventually, the steps opened up to a temple, rotted out and green under the blue twilight of the sky. Her hands felt the cold of the stones that held up what was left of the temple, and her eyes met the space that had once been the roof. Life pulled her toward the back of the temple, where a darkness led to places and people she knew would stop her breathing. Still, she stopped, feeling the wood of barely standing tables and the paper of worn down text pages.

She flipped to one particular page of two boys standing alone in a river. The banks around the river had faded, and the trees disappeared at fraying ends, but the river itself radiated a warmth that she felt creep up her bones and settle in her chest. Life trickled out into the water, and her fingers traced that life back to the boys. They looked up, to some unknown thing in the worndown distance, but she smiled where their hands locked.

Being a child was such a faraway thing, and though she expected a yearning to wash over her, she was instead filled with something she could only describe through a memory. She remembered a dream she had, not long after leaving Crait. There was a loneliness as the night crept in, and the people she knew she loved but couldn't tell had gone off, not because they wanted to leave but because they had to. She comforted herself with that bit, living in the idea that she had to stay and they had to leave. Understanding the reasons people leave, though, never really filled in the gaps they left behind.

The night made her own her solitude, deal with it, but as she drifted farther from where she was to where she was going, the ghosts of those out on adventures began to comfort her. She felt water, not unlike the water she could see on this page, in between her toes, and in the distance she saw Finn, clinkering away in a bucket of parts, mouthing some words she'd never hear to Poe. Poe was hidden away, tucked behind the gears of the Falcon.

She felt mud between her fingers, and she stretched her legs in the water. She knew that this dream hadn't meant anything; the Falcon wasn't destined to go anywhere, and Ben wasn't on these shores. Seeing Finn and Poe, feeling the way the world surrounded them without the dread or elation of understanding the journey ahead; that memory was her feeling. It was more than joy and happiness, deeper than any sadness, and more grounded than any nostalgia.

She turned the pages of this particular tome closed, and though she thought of taking it with her, there was an acceptance that nothing here would be coming back with her. Nothing she kept in her pocket or underneath the shirt that would eventually take her home could leave Exegol. Undoubtedly, there were secrets held in these washed out pages, or the ghosts of those secrets, at least. But she turned, making her way towards the back of the temple, a colder darkness that called her closer and intermixed with the erupting grass and roots of the surrounding hillsides.

She remembered the darkness that called to her on Ahch-To, and the bleakness she felt after leaving it. She remembered how the rain came down on that place, and she hoped after she left Exegol that it might rain too. Rain against the windows of Master Luke's ship made her feel warm, like she was already inside her ship. That feeling made her twist the sides of the shirt that covered her arms and bite down on its collar; she'd come here to stay, but somehow time was pushing her forward, even now.

Somewhere beyond he was waiting for her; the life in the air around her told her that. Still, waiting on the rock, thinking of him ahead, somehow that was what pulled at her heart. It was an unbalanced thing, that feeling.

The darkness at Ahch-To had come from her desire to understand, her unwillingness to let go of a pain she created to mask another, deeper wound she had tried to hide. The force had been dark there, but in many ways it helped her to understand her light. The darkness ahead of her was merely space now, space hidden from the stars that lit the path here. Entering the darkness didn't mean the light went away; she just had to find it again.

Ben had found it again, on the remains of a darkness that had been crushed so long ago. The cool of the metal, the water that splashed against them, they were nothing like his cheek, or his lips. The water that trickled onto her fingers from his vest, and the warmth that she felt on her palms soon after. Somehow, he'd found himself there, in a space where she'd never felt more lost.

She understood things now; she knew she had to move forward, as she was. She knew she couldn't be afraid, and she knew all the things she'd been able to do. Still, she needed a hand to reach out, to pull her along. One last time, she needed someone to pull her along the way.

One last time.

She approached the darkness, closed her eyes to the light that warmed her back, and moved forward.

"I didn't think you'd be able to turn away from this place, Jedi or not," a voice ahead of her said.

Rey recognized the voice, a sharper tone from the old masters she'd felt drifting towards her during her final moments on Exegol.

There was a happiness that radiated through her now; without meeting him, without really knowing anything about him, Rey felt like there could be no one else to guide her along.

"You'll help me find him, Master Kenobi?" she replied, finding her footing alongside the robed Jedi Master, young again in a place that filled him with life.

"I should think we'll be helping each other, Rey. I've still got a lot to learn, so for now, I think we're both students," he replied.

"That's something only a Jedi Master would say," Rey remarked, finding her footing on the stones that lined the cave they traversed. She felt the smoothness of each one with every step she took. All that scared her now was beyond this place, outside the darkness.

Rey found that Obi-Wan Kenobi paced his walk much faster than even she could, and understood just how much younger this version of him must have been from the master she'd heard in Han's stories. She couldn't make out the jingle of his lightsaber as they walked along, and for the first time she felt the missing weight of her own against her hip. Neither Luke nor Leia were with her in this place.

"Master Kenobi, I'd like to keep walking like this forever, you know," Rey started.

"But you've got so many questions to ask, I'd imagine," Kenobi replied.

"I'm not really sure where to begin, trying to connect where I am now with where I was on Exegol," Rey said, "and to be honest, I'm not really sure I want to connect these at all."

"I'm not sure I'd be really be able to tell you anything more than you already know; I'm not interested in understanding much of this place either," Kenobi answered back, slowing down to walk next with the girl he'd help to save.

There was some quiet peace in walking next to her now. She felt so much like that apprentice he'd met so long ago, if not a little more worn-down. Here, his happiness could warm the darkness around them, and light the path ahead, if only a little.

"I think, at the heart of it, I'm not here to answer anymore Jedi riddles. Maybe that's more of what life is, a fickle force an ancient religion tries to comprehend, but for right now, I'm just trying to find the boy I lost," Rey said, clinging to the little bit of light that had filtered in, unaided by any cracks in the surrounding walls.

"I don't think there's anything any Jedi has left to teach you, Rey. You're the best of all of us," Obi-Wan replied, "As for the boy you lost, I think he'd like to find you, too."

Rey tugged on her shirt; there weren't memories sewn into its seams, but she imagined all the memories they might have created together. Memories she wanted to have with Ben weren't quite ghosts, but they were still haunting. They were echoes she knew she'd never forget, though they might change and grow just as she did. However far she got from this moment, from this conversation with Obi-Wan, from this planet she'd one day call home, she could never outgrow that love. Love she wished could sew into this shirt and love for as long as life would keep her up.

Love that understood her. Love that could be called dreaming.


	2. Chapter 2

**CH.2**

For a while the pair trudged along silently in the darkness; an understanding emerged between the two of both pain, and healing. There exists an idea that pain must be finite, that the healing process changes it, reforms it into something else entirely. There wasn't a person left in the galaxy who understood the unendingness of it like Obi-Wan Kenobi did. He filled spaces in himself with joys and success, but they could only balance out the pain and the failures. They couldn't replace them.

Rey understood that quite early on in her training. Mending her mind required long conversations with ghosts she knew she would never see again. Their mouths moved like people she'd loved and lost, but she knew deep down that their words were just poetry she'd written for them to say. There was nothing special, or really even unknowable about them.

There were times when she knew life spoke to her from some place she couldn't understand. She'd seen Master Luke lift a sunken ship out of the water and raise the hopes of the galaxy without a body. He was a kind of ghost that existed apart from her, but healing revealed ghosts from locked-up memories she couldn't hide anymore or do away with.

As freeing as dealing with her pain was, it also bound her to it. To accept it, she had to understand it. As Obi-Wan walked alongside her, measuring his steps to keep pace with hers, she felt something kindred in the air around him, old and weathered though his soul appeared to be.

At the end of this road, there would be a parting for the both of them. Maybe they'd never meet again, and maybe if they did, Rey's journey would be miles different from what it was now. But there was something honest about the gaps in conversation that silence filled now. Many of the figures that acted as surrogates for Rey's parents had understood failure, and she'd lost nearly all of them. It was time for her to be the hero now, and she recognized that. But few of them understood the cost of succeeding quite like Obi-Wan had. The dichotomy of that connected them.

After a while of walking, they came upon a clearing in the cave. Rey's eyes had started to adjust to the blackness, but here she could feel the air open, and what was once smooth stone had cracked under her feet. She could hear grass tear from its roots as she walked, and ahead towards the center she saw an unfamiliar green glow running like fireflies through tree tendrils that emerged from clear pond water.

The green energy that radiated through each root shot like blood vessels through veins, and it made the hair on Rey's neck tingle with life. The way it moved through each root, dancing in and out of the water and around the room in a great circle was not unlike the way life moved between the tips of Ray's fingers and the beating of Ben's heart when she'd helped him on the fallen remains of the battle on Endor.

Rey waded into the pond, and Obi-Wan followed close behind. The water was deeper than either of them imagined, and soon they were up to their waists. The water was filled with some sort of greenish subterfuge, not unlike algae, but somehow less alive.

"Life runs out, I suppose. You could do much worse than to end up in a pond like this," Obi-Wan said, holding a piece of the almost-algae in his hand.

Ben's shirt dragged in the water, and Rey was glad the frayed ends of it fell under the surface. The chips in her nails had mended, and the scars on her neck had healed, but the rips in Ben's shirt remained. It wasn't hers to heal, not really.

Feeling what he might feel, though, was a dangerous thing she quite liked. She moved her fingers over the water, and soon her hands became his. She forgot who she'd been, and in this pool, it was she who had faded away, and not Ben Solo.

Maybe if she closed her eyes, Ben could open his eyes back on Exegol. He could move on, and there might be some sort of comfort in that. There was a bittersweetness that washed over her tongue, but she refused to swallow it down. She couldn't acknowledge the impossible, not now.

"Rey," Obi-Wan said, grabbing at her shoulder. She opened her eyes and saw the green that danced in the tree roots now circling her in the air. The life that had filled the cave in perfect balance now danced in shapes like great fireflies Rey had imagined in galaxies far, far away. They were chaotic, nearly bouncing into one another the tighter and tighter they bound together, but Rey felt a unity between each of them and soon shapes she recognized began to form. She saw herself, and soon her hands began to feel like hers again and she knew it would be her eyes that awoke back on Exegol.

"I'm not sure I'm ready to see this, Master," Rey started, looking back at Obi-Wan. She could clearly make out his face now, and though he tried to hide his feelings behind the stern look that covered his eyes, she felt in him an understanding and a pity that she'd felt so many times in Luke and Leia before.

"We all see different things, Rey," Obi-Wan started, "but we only see them when we're ready. You know that more than any."

"They're just ghosts then," Rey said.

She recognized herself in the fireflies that moved ahead, lying helpless in Ben's arms. She saw his hand move to her stomach, and she felt the heat of his hand for the first time. There was another part of her that she'd have to heal for the rest of her life.

The fireflies painted her drawing breath, and there was hard air in her lungs. She nearly collapsed under the water, and she could feel sweat rolling down her forehead and back. The cuts that had healed and gone away now felt like they were going to burst open again, but worse, wounds she had suffered so long ago were on the verge of opening again. Her body ached like it had when she'd been flung onto the floor in Snoke's throneroom, and her legs burned against the cool of the pond water like they had when she hit the hot sand fleeing from storm troopers and the Knights of Ren.

The pain eased, though, and fireflies surrounded her. Life poured back into her, and the warmth on her stomach turned into a familiar pressure that made her smile.

Obi-Wan placed a hand on her shoulder, and in him Rey could feel a mix of both regret and admiration as he looked on.

"What a fine pair of Jedi you both became, Rey," Obi-Wan shared, clenching down on her shoulder with pride, tears on his cheeks.

She felt Ben's arms wrap around her now, as they did in the energy that moved in front of her. She felt his hair against her cheek, his shirt against her chest. Wearing that shirt now made her aware of the totality of the moment they had shared. It was inescapable, a destiny they'd created and forged apart from what the Sith and Jedi had set out for them.

It was the kiss that they shared next that made her stomach burn. She'd found it in the way the snow sounded under her, in the way the stars had lined themselves up in the sky, and the way Ben's shirt clung to her now, stuck to her with sweat and pond water, but seeing it then, as it had been, as she'd felt it and imagined it to be not long after, made her regret so much and cherish so little. There was a burning in her bones for him, but she knew that burning was not the totality of it. They'd made it there, they'd saved each other, and more than that, they'd found a way to say they loved one another without needing the words; that was winning. In a universe that demanded that they defy fate or let it beat them down, they'd won.

Making it to the end was not a loss. He was light, and the space she wanted to fill with him didn't make that untrue.

"Master, I'm not ready to see this at all," Rey started, "there are things I'm just not strong enough to do."

"We can go, Rey. You can turn back, you can move forward, but you don't have to stay here," Obi-Wan replied. His arm gripped her tight, more like a father than a friend.

The fireflies danced again, and she found herself walking alongside Ben Solo. She pushed him at a joke, and he moved in closer. She felt his muscles on her fingers with the push, and his arm around her back when he leaned in. There was no mercy.

"I know that these are just moments inside my head, and I know I've got to find a way to deal with them, but why now," she pleaded.

"You'll never see these moments with your eyes. You'll never feel them with your hands, never taste them with your lips," Obi-Wan started, "But if you close your eyes now, and imagine them, they fill you with love all the same."

"Life is never exactly what you want it to be. That's not about being a Sith or a Jedi; that's just the plate we're left with. You both deserve more, but this is what you have, so don't throw it away. You don't have to deal with this now, or ever, but, don't throw away this love, the one you still feel, trying to get rid of ghosts and memories that can never fade," Obi-Wan said.

The girl Obi-Wan had expected to crumple underneath the weight of loss grew incredibly still after his words. There was a defiant acceptance on her face as she watched the love she had missed grow and mature in front of her, and though no part of her moved, Obi-Wan felt the room change around him. The water grew still, just as she did, but there was life that moved through it. Somehow, it made his hands feels real, and he nearly mistook the feeling in his chest for the beating of his heart.

Life emanated from Rey, and for the first time since he'd trained his own apprentice, before Luke, before failure, he felt a power that defined the galaxy. The Jedi had been with her on Exegol, but she had been the one. She was the balance.

Fear that did not hate, did not weaken, did not define. Pain that came from loss, pain that did not strangle, pain that could not defeat her. She defied the Jedi, and redefined them.

The scenes went on, defining lifetimes Rey could have spent with Ben. She had life left to live, but somehow it felt stolen. There was only emptiness.

"Master Kenobi, I think I've got to move forward now, and I'm sorry for that. Maybe that's failing the trial," Rey said, "But I can't stay any longer."

"If I ever figure out how to pass this trial, I'll make sure to let you know," Obi-Wan replied.

"What do you see?" Rey asked.

"It changes. I saw Luke's father. I saw failing him. I saw myself failing Luke, and Luke's failures. I've seen you here, stranded on Jakku. Now I see your pain, just as you do," Obi-Wan answered back.

"You've got to forgive yourself Master, or you'll never be able to rest," Rey said, raising her hands out of the pond.

"I'm not sure any Jedi can really rest, Rey. We've still got heroes left to guide," Obi-Wan quipped.

"I think it's time I let the old men take a break, don't you think," Rey smiled. There was comfort in that smile, a healing alongside the pain. It was a smile for her, an acknowledgement of what she'd accomplished, despite losing Ben.

She raised her hands then, and the whole of the cave was filled with light as the ceiling crumbled and water shot into the sky. There was light out there, and it was then that she needed it more than ever. So she found it, no matter how far.

It was in that cave that Rey truly decided on finding Ben Solo. She wanted his hands in her hands. She wanted to feel his shirt against his chest, not hers. She wanted his lips again.

She didn't want to imagine. She wanted to feel.

All she had to do was find his light.


	3. Chapter 3

**CH. 3**

Rey stepped out from the rubble of the cave and found herself in a summer heat that showered over a field lit by fireflies and the stars in the sky. The world that existed behind her began to dissolve away; the rocks and rubble of the cave became sand and the snow that pelted the trees and the ground gave way to an ocean she'd never cross again.

Her shoulders were drenched in sweat that flowed down to her fingertips and caught fire like puddles of oil. The air around her crackled with life, and she felt like she could split the ocean behind her in two. She was, for the first time since opening herself fully to the power of the Force, aware of just how far she'd come on her journey.

She could remake the composition of the world around her, warp the seams of it into a place she found beyond beautiful. She could forge pathways out of uncut stone, and mold oceans into beautiful waterfalls and fountains. The power that flowed through her could change rain into snow, and summer into spring.

None of that would change the path that waited for her now.

She let the embers of life dissipate into the air around her, and walked through the field that lay just ahead of where the beach she'd made ended. Sand caught in her boots, and wrecked as they were from coming up from the rubble, she left them behind. The world that waited ahead was a memory she hoped she'd be able to remake one day. She caught salt on the air from a breeze the blew in, and the air calmed the summer heat that poured over her. The grass from the field came up to just above the knee, and it felt natural against the bottoms of her feet. Fireflies hung in the air, waiting until the moment before contact to zoom around her. She saw no mountains in the distance, and the field seemed to stretch on for miles, lined with fireflies as far as the eye could see. There were valleys and the field dipped and came back into view, but Rey had never felt closer to the sky than here. The light of the stars hung low to the ground, and as dark as the cave had been, this field was equally as bright.

Rey was called to some greater future all that time ago on Jakku. She'd experienced worlds she never could have imagined, and felt things she thought were reserved for the heroes of galaxies long washed away by time. She'd felt like a savior and a failure. She'd felt important, and then so very small again. The world that surrounded her had always demanded that she be unimportant, and the path set for her always demanded that she be greater.

Now, standing in fields that stretched as far as she could see, she felt like a piece of the universe's fabric. Life existed around her, and the light that bathed her made her part of that life. If she kept her eyes closed, and kept walking until her feet gave out, maybe she'd find some place quiet. Maybe she'd find a lighthouse that peered out over the ocean, saving travelers and welcoming them to a new home. She imagined putting her feet in the water, the clear blueness of it. Adventure would call from beyond the horizon, but she could tell it to find someone else. She could imagine living with him there.

She stopped walking then, and settled her heart. The deal she'd made in coming here was in finding Ben, but she knew she'd have to leave again. She might want to stay here, to live as many lives as possible in a world she knew could be perfect, but there was real life to be lived beyond Exegol. The call that existed beyond the horizon had led her to where she was now. It'd led her to Ben. If she listened to it again, she knew it would lead her to where she needed to be.

She opened her eyes, half expecting to find a lighthouse overlooking the ocean, and found more of the fields, save for a lone rock and a very shabby looking hermit sat upon it. His hair was gray and a little too long, and his robes were weathered just a little beyond looking dignified. She recognized her master all the same.

Rey approached her old master, and for the first time since she'd met him all that time ago, found she lacked the right words to say. He'd failed Ben Solo, redeemed him, and then guided her to become the person she was meant to be. She lacked the foundation required to express her feelings, the joy of finding someone who finally felt like a father again, and she wept.

Luke turned at the sound of her tears, his own cheeks wet, but wearing a smile all the same.

"Every time I think I've gone far enough, you come up with a way to screw it up and find me again," he said, extending a hand out to his apprentice, fully grown and capable of forging her own path. He had helped her become an adult, and then a Jedi, but now he reached out as a friend, perhaps even a father.

"It seems I have a habit of following after people that try to leave me. You most of all, my Master," Rey replied, taking Luke's hand and taking a seat alongside him.

They sat together for a while, watching the stars that reigned over them. There was an inexplicable closeness that drew them together, far more real than any relationship she had with another person. Never had Rey understood Luke's inner grief and longing more than now, after having climbed the proverbial mountain in defeating Palpatine. When she left Exegol, Rey knew she would become something different than what she'd been before.

As Luke had, she would have to walk a path different from what she'd envisioned herself to be. Bittersweet as it was, there was a comfort in knowing she'd learned from him, knowing that if she stumbled, as he had, she would find a way to get back up again.

"I met Master Obi-Wan when I arrived; he felt different from what Han told me," Rey started, "I guess I don't really know what I was expecting, but he felt much older, even than you."

"Well I would hope so, my years as an island boy have kept me young you know," Luke replied.

"Still, not entirely unlike you, there was a kindness in him. I felt layers of sadness, but they'd all been cracked. I guess I see where you get it from, Master," she said, smiling up at the stars. It felt odd, after such a long fight, to be able to enjoy moments alone with someone she might consider family. Somewhere in her soul, there was a deep exhaustion, and the levity of this moment felt like sleeping for the first time in a long while. There was so much she wanted to say, and so much she knew she'd forget to ask. Her heart relaxed at the thought of it, and she gave in to the protection of the moment.

She was safe, here on a rock under the stars, with her father Luke Skywalker. She might never feel this way again, but the bitterness of that was washed away by the happiness in her heart.

"Old Ben, huh. If it wasn't for him, there would be no Jedi today. There's a little bit of him in everything I taught you, in the little bit I taught your Ben. Any of the good I did with my life, I learned it from Old Ben and Master Yoda," Luke said.

"I'd venture to say they'd disagree with you, Master. Maybe you deserve some credit," Rey replied, placing her hand on his shoulder. His eyes followed the sky above, but she felt the overwhelming sadness that still haunted his heart. It wasn't sadness over his failures anymore; there was a tremendous loss that widened the gaps in his happiness.

He'd forgiven himself, but grief remained where most expected joy should be.

Forgetting his sadness, Luke covered Rey's hand with his own, squeezing before each of them let go. He wouldn't let his grief become her burden again.

"I understand why I saw Ben, but I'm curious as to what exactly you're doing here. From what he told me, you both left on fairly loving terms, you know," Luke smiled at his apprentice.

Rey felt like she'd been scolded by a parent, and turned away to hide her smile more so than her blushing. She never thought she'd have someone around to care about the choices that she made, much less chide her for them. There was playful happiness that filled her eyes and wet her cheeks, and her smile was warm like summer.

"I suppose I'm here because a lovely parting isn't how I'd like things to end, Master. I think I've had enough partings to cover a lifetime, and I'm quite done with them," Rey replied, managing to turn towards Luke again. The red hadn't left her face quite yet, but she started to feel time slipping from them.

Summer was starting to feel a lot like Fall.

"I never wanted for either of you to follow in our footsteps, Rey. I wanted for you to find the light, and walk that path together," Luke replied, looking into his apprentice's eyes.

She could feel the reality of truth coming towards her now.

"But you have to know, whatever you find here, you won't be able to walk the same path again. The love you feel connects you forever, and that's a chain that will never break. But life, love, the Force, none of them work the way you intend them to," he said, his hand now on her shoulder. As bitter as it was, he drew on what he knew to be true to steady his young friend's heart.

"Maybe that's true, Master," Rey started, "But I know whatever I find here is better than leaving gaps where his arms should be. Being here makes me scared; I know it's a place I'm not ready to see yet. But there's no point in saving the galaxy if I can't protect him."

There was silence for a while, and Rey moved off the stone to feel the softness of the grass again. She wanted to enjoy the breeze of a summer planet again, but that feeling was gone.

"Am I not supposed to be a hero, Master?" Rey turned, pleading with Luke.

"The Jedi path is something you can't really define Rey. There are people who call us heroes because that's what we are to them. The Jedi give up fear, love, even passion not because it makes us better, but because it allows us to make decisions that are better for the people around us than they are for ourselves. In the end, it's a circle that leaves us with more regrets than we can bear, but it also saves enough people that you could almost call it worth it," Luke replied.

"But you don't have to follow the legacy of the Jedi, Rey. You can leave this place, and forge a path that's yours," Luke continued, pointing forward, beyond Rey.

Rey turned, and found an image of Finn, Poe and herself, locked in arms amidst a victory celebration. This was different from the visions she had seen in the cave with Obi-Wan; they were real, an actual scene from the future that she knew to be true. She moved toward them, and she could feel their warmth. She longed for their embrace, and this scene made guilt creep up her throat like a sickness. She fell to her knees, silently begging for them to hold her, just as they held the girl in front of her.

"You don't have to stay here Rey. He wants you to be happy. The girl in that future, she looks happy to me," Luke said, approaching his wounded apprentice.

Rey slumped over, clutching the grass at her knees. She knew the truth that laid before her, but she also felt the truth that had guided her to this moment.

"I want to see them again, Master. More than that, I want them to know how much I care about them. As much as the Jedi were me, they were in that temple too. Maybe that's not such a bad legacy, even," Rey said, before rising to her feet. She reached out her hand and tugged at Finn's jacket. She cradled his face in her hand, before embracing the both of them in a hug, taking her rightful place.

When she let go, the vision faded.

"You've become so very powerful, my apprentice," Luke said, proudly looking on.

"But that's not the legacy I want to leave. Ben gave his life for mine. He placed his hand on my stomach, and I felt him there with me. Even now, I feel like his breathing is my own. I can't turn away from that. Maybe it's the wrong choice, but I guess I feel like I have to make it," Rey said, turning back to face Luke.

"Doing what's right, even when it hurts. Following your heart, even when it means hurting those around you. The balance between those two is you. You're the thin line, and you decide where to place your steps, Rey," Luke started, "If you feel like you have to see him again, make that your path."

"The Jedi are an idea, Rey, the same as the Sith. They're ways you live your life, but they're not who you are. As long as you remember that, not just here, but at every moment of your journey, then I know you'll make the right choice," Luke said.

"I wish I didn't have to do this without you, Master," Rey said. The end was upon them, and now she felt the gravity of how painful that end would be.

"I'll always be with you, Rey. You know where to find me," Luke said, smiling in much the same way a parent might before saying goodbye. This would be the last time they would meet for a while, and he knew that. Lying was a painful cover. The person he raised would be even more grown up the next time he saw her, and as much as she was pained to see him go, he was equally as sorrowful.

Still, he put on a brave face, and prepared to part from his apprentice, the savior of so many galaxies.

"I know you will, Master. You haven't failed me yet," Rey said back.

"Close your eyes, and let the Force guide you," Luke said, turning away, "I've got to get back to my thoughtful rock, you know."

"I'll miss you Master Luke," Rey whispered to herself, closing her eyes. She waited for a while, and felt the world quiet around her. Luke's footsteps faded, and the world became an ocean. She floated for a while, until she felt the warmth of a lighthouse around her.

She opened her eyes, and followed the light to shore.


	4. Chapter 4

**CH.4**

Rey stretched her arms out on the beach, the sand sticking to any skin bare against the ground. Ben's shirt was drenched, its warmth escaping into the night air. She wanted to reach out and grasp that warmth, to keep it with her as long as her breath would allow, but her arms ached and fatigue began to sweep over her body. Love back home was a chain that pulled at her, and as sweet as it was to finally feel love from some place she might call home for the first time in her life, she felt a call to move forward.

She hated herself for being able to forgo them so easily, to spend her free moments wanting to be in the arms of someone her new family would almost certainly hate, and definitely not understand. She'd spent so many dawns and sunsets on rusted metal that sank into hot sand alone, wondering if she'd dreamed up the parents she couldn't really remember. She had felt her mother around her shoulders, and she could nearly hear the words her father had said just before he left. Every time she came close to remembering those words, her own screams drowned them out. She'd filled gaps in her head where love should be with ways of blaming herself, and though she'd made it here, she felt those filled-in gaps begin to soften again.

She wanted to be complete in the arms of her friends, feel at home in the pages of textbooks Luke Skywalker had written, and be satisfied by all the beautiful places that she could call home. But as she rose to her feet, as her knees nearly buckled and as her head pounded, she knew she could never feel those things if she did not find Ben. She wanted the boy with the smile in her arms again, to be part of the circle that could finally make her feel like an actual person. She'd seen the worst of him, and now she knew she needed the best. His best had made the lost girl who cried on Jakku feel found, and she was never going to let that go.

She would hold on to it, to him, even if all they could be were ghosts locked in each other's memories.

As she moved forward, the lighthouse behind her cracked, and the sand beneath her feet shifted and swirled into the air. The murkiness that came with early morning gave way to a calmness that settled just before the coming of the sun. She felt a breeze from the ocean behind her, and it started to unwind her. Years of exhaustion melted out of her, and the ground shifted from sand to grass beneath her feet. Edges of the beach ahead turned into a grassy valley that was filled with fireflies and a strange hope that had guided her here.

She realized then, looking into a valley that erupted with life that could only be called nostalgic, that she'd never really considered the idea of failing. Somehow, this unknown place that could hardly exist had become her last hope for a life that could be filled with love that made her feel worthy of all the gifts that her masters had left behind. The journey she fought to finish on Exegol had brought her here, and she'd never been more sure that was so much left unfinished. The gravity of that filled her to the brim and it nearly toppled out of her. It burned at the edges of her throat and made her heart race, but it also widened her smile as she tugged on the edges of Ben's shirt.

She had no real hope of finding him, but she danced to the rhythm of his steps in between fireflies, and tasted him like salted caramel on a breeze that flickered through the valley. If this was all life could muster for the pair of them, she could find a lonely happiness in it. Wherever Ben was, she hoped he could feel the same.

She found the bottom of the valley, where her feet would carry her no further. Rain began to trickle in, and the fireflies gathered around her. The space was painted, like some beautiful place she'd like to go, but it felt hollow, and staring into it was looking at a cracked mirror. The cracks existed where she should be, and she knew this to be the spot where she could go no farther; she wouldn't be here again until long after Exegol, when her journey really had ended.

The exhaustion that filled her at the top of the valley was anchored beyond this center. It called to her, and though she wished she could answer, she knew there was too much left to do. People needed her, and there was a burning in her heart for them; she wanted to be a hero that could save them. That eagerness, the desire to be better, had brought her back from failure on nearly every step of her journey.

Here it was simply bittersweet.

She waited, planted in the same spot, for what felt like days, staring into the same cracked piece of a world of otherwise perfect balance. Here, at the end of that world, she had expected to find Ben; all she felt now was more of herself and not enough of him. She had his steps, or the ones that she had created for him, and the way his lips tasted. She had the way his hand felt against her stomach, and she still felt the embers of his knuckles against the palm of her hand. She had so many feelings of him, but she wanted the real thing. She wanted to soften all the filled-in gaps of his heart. She wanted to know if her love was enough to fill those gaps in again.

But where he should be, she only felt more of herself. The balance that existed between them was fractured, and love eked out into the world and crawled on her skin. It burned, and she found herself unable to escape it, trapped in fearing life without it and haunted by what remained of it.

Wanting that pain to stop, and not being able to let it go moved her hands forward. She needed to be in the space where he was meant to be, not to swim in the air that he should be breathing; maybe that was the closest she'd ever get to him again. She wanted to be with him, but more than that, she felt she deserved a goodbye. If she couldn't bring him back, if all she had left was the shirt wrapped in his hands on Exegol, then she wanted to see his face again. Searching for him and finding only more of herself was the cruelest end her heart could fathom.

Her fingers danced on the edges of that space, and the air was a smooth cold, like metal, keeping her from pushing any further. She found this world to be something she could mold and twist to the way it should be, but beyond the cool of this barrier was a world she could not understand. It was a twilight between darkness and light, a level in the Force that was radically different from what she knew.

She pushed her fingers against the metal and felt her bones began to quake. Fireflies gathered around her hands, and crackles of lightning made their way to the ends of her fingernails before dissipating against the surface of the barrier. She tapped into all the power she had left in her body, but the wall she had thought as fragile as a mirror or a painting on arrival did not budge. She could feel the space where Ben should be, but she couldn't touch it. It would not bend to her, and so she rested her forehead against it. Tears she thought she should cry sweated out of her every pore, and the sadness she wanted to feel was lost to something she knew she'd carry forever. He felt wholly, inescapably gone.

"I can't come as I am now, Ben," Rey said, dragging her fingers across the air, collecting drops from the rain that came down.

"I know you couldn't say anything, and that's okay. There will be moments I forget you, because there will be moments I forget myself," she started, "But whenever I'm myself again, when I can't escape the hole we've left for ourselves, you'll be with me. I'll fill in the gaps with words I imagine you'd say. They'll be filled with the love I felt in your hands."

"I want to say that's okay, but I know it's not," she said, burying her head into the sleeve of his shirt, wet from the rain. She swore it was drowning.

The morning was beginning to pass, and Rey could feel her time to go back to Exegol spreading over the world behind her. Memories were lost to a future she knew she'd have to face, and she could taste it in the rain she felt trickle across her lips.

"I can't crack this wall apart and save you. I'm not strong enough, somehow. Maybe I never will be, and I don't know how I can live with that," Rey said. She began to let her fingers slip through the barrier, and what was metal began to feel like water.

There was no fear, no hesitation. The barrier reflected the life she called upon from the Force, but it accepted the emptiness that overwhelmed her now. She couldn't swim in the space, but she felt like she could become more of it. Maybe that could be enough.

It was then that Rey felt his hand against hers, the rough warmth of his fingers around hers. She wanted to trace every ridge and rise, compare them to her own. She wanted to understand how he'd walked the same path as she did, planets and stars apart. His hands traced hers too, and more than any words she could conjure up, she felt peace in that.

She wanted to push forward, to find ridges and rises on all the other parts of him, but she found the barrier rejected her again. Her emptiness was filled, for the moment, with the warmth of his hand.

"I didn't want you to come, Rey," Ben's voice called out from behind the wall. These were the first words she'd heard from him since he'd found his way back to the light. The way they sounded, the way they felt, they were like coming home after a long trip away.

"You didn't want to see me again?" she asked, pressed and smiling against the wall. She closed her eyes and imagined him, his words paint that filled in the picture around the warmth of his hand, firmly pressed against hers, fingers interlocked.

"I hoped you would stay away, but I wanted to find you here again. I hoped you'd find your way back home, but I want to stay here with you as long as this world will let me. I hope I don't see you again for a long time, but I want to break down this wall," Ben said.

"You've very good at this whole balance thing, I think," she said gripping tighter with her fingers.

She heard him laugh, in a muffled, groggy way. For a second, she thought she could feel him breathing, and she was relieved that she wouldn't have to anymore. He could have his breath back, and she could take her turn waiting.

She felt a warmth against her forehead, and she knew this was as close as they could be. The almost-ness of it was draining and relieving. It was sour on her tongue and sweet going down.

"I'll never really be gone, you know," Ben started, "I'll be with you wherever you go."

"I need you, the whole of you. I don't need you to save me anymore; I need you to hold me, to be around me, to be taken by me," she replied.

"There's nowhere I would rather be than with you, Rey," Ben replied.

The stars above began to flicker, and as they drew nearer to the ground, Rey knew it was time to go home. She'd have to leave Exegol, and this place with it. The journey ahead would lead her here, but that journey would be without Ben Solo.

She knew he understood that too, and neither could let go.

"You've got to go Rey," Ben said, breaking the silence.

"I don't want to go, not even a little bit," she replied, cracks in her voice and heart heavy with guilty pain.

"It's scary, but it's something I know you can do. And I'll follow wherever you go," Ben said. Rey felt herself slipping back into reality.

"Wait for me, please," she pleaded, barely holding on.

"Always," Ben replied, his hand letting go of hers. Emptiness was gone, replaced with a pain she didn't know how to let go of. She let every feeling and memory pour out of, all the good and the bad, and she watched as the last embers of fireflies danced around the cracks in the wall where her hand had touched his. The barrier was all that remained, and it too started to crumble. As it fell, she pulled herself steady, and watched for the seconds she had before she'd be awake again.

She saw Ben, his face the same as it had been in her hands when he gave his life for hers on Exegol. Her eyes gave way to blackness, and as he faded from her, she did the only thing she had power left to do: she reached out her hand, the same one that had felt the warmth of his cheek and interlocked with his fingers, and pulled.

It was desperate, and upon waking on Exegol, she felt helpless, much like a child.

Her heart nearly stopped when she found the shirt she'd clung to was missing, but she carried no hope with her to Luke's ship.


End file.
